[Guidance Overview]
ACA's Contraceptive Services Coverage Mandate: Regulatory and Judicial Update (PDF)
"Under the amended guidance, an employer will suffer no prejudice if it instead opts for the enforcement safe harbor. In making this choice, an employer is not conceding that it is not a religious employer with respect to the definition in the final regulations and is free to later claim a religious employer exemption. This gives an employer time to consider the requirements and whether or not it would meet the religious employer exemption requirements."
(Buck Consultants)
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[Guidance Overview]
Common Questions on the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (PDF)
"[This Alert discusses FAQs] recently published for the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 ... [which] aimed to provide true parity for mental health and substance abuse benefits. Health plans have struggled with complying with this Act because it is confusing on how parity on these services should be achieved. The FAQs provide key insights to how the government expects plans to comply with various requirements."
(McGraw Wentworth)
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D.C., Vermont May Require Small Employers to Use Their Health Insur.ance Exchanges
"To ensure that their exchanges have enough enrollees to be viable, the District of Columbia and Vermont might require small employers to participate in their insur.ance exchanges. Revenue needed to operate state exchanges likely will come from an assessment or tax on participating health plans, which will be based on the number of enrollees."
(AISHealth.com; free registration required)
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Satisfaction With Health Coverage and Care
"Satisfaction levels have been trending up among [Consumer Directed Health Plan (CDHP)] enrollees, and trending down among traditional-plan enrollees.... Individuals in [CDHPs] and high-deductible health plans were less likely than those in traditional plans both to recommend their health plan or to stay with their current plan, if they had the opportunity to switch. Dissatisfaction with out-of-pocket costs may be driving overall satisfaction trends."
(EBRI)
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Zero Out of 512 Large Employers Say They Definitely Will Drop Health Insur.ance
"[A recent survey of] 512 companies that employed more than 1,000 workers each [and who] spend at least $5 mil.lion in health benefits annually ... asked how likely it was that they would drop coverage in 2014 and send employers to the new health care exchanges being created to accommodate the law. Not a single employer said that scenario was 'very likely.' A mere 3 percent ranked it 'somewhat likely.' The vast majority -- 77 percent -- said it was 'not likely' that they would stop offering health insur.ance."
(The Washington Post; free registration required)
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Deteriorating Health Insur.ance Coverage from 2000 to 2010
"[T]his brief analyzes coverage trends among children, parents, and childless adults, overall and by ACA-relevant income groups. [The authors] find that over the past decade, rates of employer-sponsored insur.ance have steadily deteriorated across these population groups, with more substantial declines occurring among the lower-income categories[.]"
(Urban Institute)
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Employers, Employees Await Definitions Related to ACA's Employer Penalties
"Anticipating how the Treasury Department might define 'full-time employee' and 'hours of service' in implementing the employer penalty provisions of the [ACA] has become a high-stakes waiting game ... Employers are concerned that the regulations be written in such a way as to help them avoid substantial monetary penalties. Employee interest groups want employer penalty regulations that leave no loopholes that could undermine [the ACA's] statutory goal of achieving near-universal health insur.ance coverage."
(Bloomberg BNA)
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Enforcement Safe Harbor Established for Non-Grandfathered, Non-Federal Governmental Plans
"A critical component of the DOL claims and appeals regulations is that notices to claimants must contain specific, mandated content. However, [certain] mandated content should not apply with respect to participants in governmental plans, because these plans are not governed by ERISA and are not subject to the jurisdiction of the DOL[.]"
(The Segal Group, Inc.)
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Medicare Part D Notice Due Before October 15th
"Sponsors of group health plans that provide prescription drug coverage generally must provide the [Medicare Part D] Notice to all participants who are eligible for Medicare. The Notice must be distributed prior to the start of the election period (which runs from October 15 to December 7), so you may want to include the Notice in your open enrollment packages. You must send the Notice out no later than October 14, 2012."
(McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP)
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[Opinion]
ERIC Urges Administration to Clarify that Employers Are Not Required to Offer Dependent Coverage to
"ERIC is concerned that the executive branch agencies might interpret ACA to require employers to offer dependent coverage regardless of whether the dependent coverage is affordable or sufficiently valuable. This interpretation is not consistent with the statute as a whole, and it would have significant negative effects on the nation's large employers without producing a meaningful increase in dependent coverage."
(The ERISA Industry Committee)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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Caterpillar Sued Over Alleged Asset Waste
"Caterpillar Inc. ... [has been] sued by investors who allege directors wasted corporate assets by not ensuring that executive-incentive plans were tax-deductible. Board members also wrongly enriched themselves by taking compensation that couldn't be deducted, and the company made insufficient disclosures to stockholders, [according to suits filed by] a Philadelphia asbestos workers' pension fund and the Lansing, Michigan, Police and Fire Retirement System ... The pension funds also challenged ... the cash value, including stock options, senior officials could potentially receive -- as much as $87.2 mil.lion each under a long-term incentive plan."
(Treasury & Risk)
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Transition Relief for 'Section 409A Release Timing Errors' Expires on December 31, 2012
"In order to allow sufficient time to correct such errors before the transition relief expires, employers should take the following steps: [1] Review and revise documents. [2] Obtain any necessary consents from employees to document amendments. [3] If necessary, have Board of Directors or Compensation Committee take action to adopt any necessary amendments."
(Cooley LLP)
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Executive Compensation: Inaction on Policy Front Puts Focus on Investors, Proxy Advisors
"The media continues to focus on executive compensation as a driver in the inequality debate, but with legislative and regulatory movement at a standstill, companies have shifted their focus to engaging institutional investors on pay for performance, changing proxy advisory firm policies, and preparing for the policy debates to come."
(HR Policy Association)
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Recent Survey Results Put Compensation Clawbacks Back in the News
"One commentator opined that because 'only 17%' of financial institutions clawed back compensation, 'the results may suggest that the regulators are not achieving the objectives of their persistent call for banks to implement clawback policies.' ... [T]he fact that 17% of financial institutions clawed back compensation in one calendar year -- a year in which the Dodd-Frank compensation clawbacks were not yet legally required -- is remarkable."
(Winston & Strawn LLP)
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Seattle Paid Leave Rule Could Have Nationwide Implications
"'While it is not often that a local ordinance can have nationwide effects, the Seattle [Paid Sick and Safe Time law] ... might be just such an ordinance,' says [a labor attorney]. 'For instance, a small manufacturer in Maine whose West Coast sales representative calls on Seattle customers would be required to allow the salesperson to accrue, use, and carry over paid time off based on the time the sales representative was calling on his/her Seattle customers.'"
(Employee Benefit News)
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Employee Review Near FMLA Leave Time: A Slippery Slope
"[T]he Family and Medical Leave Act does not require an employer to adjust its performance standards for the time an employee is actually on the job. Employers, however, would be wise to adjust their performance standards to avoid penalizing an employee for being absent during FMLA-protected leave."
(Thompson SmartHR Manager)
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[Opinion]
Testimony Before the ERISA Advisory Council on Managing Disability Risks (PDF)
"The American Benefits Council supports regulatory clarification that [disability] insur.ance can be provided under a [retirement] plan without adverse tax consequences.... On the other hand, what individuals do not need, is credit insur.ance against disability and death on 401(k) loans. [The Council is] very supportive of broad disability insur.ance offered through the workplace but question the value of credit insur.ance on 401(k) plans loans relative to the cost."
(American Benefits Council)
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Press Releases
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